When I first opened the series of Instagram stories that Brooklyn Peltz Beckham posted on Monday night, I rolled my eyes, thinking to myself, ‘Here we go again. Another tirade from a nepo baby throwing their toys out of the pram.’
But as I swiped, reading his accounts of his parents controlling the family narrative, attempting to ruin his wedding, and even refusing to see him on David’s birthday unless it was on their terms, I felt a lurch in my stomach.
Because suddenly the story had started to sound all too familiar.
In Brooklyn’s allegations, I hear echoes of my own frustrations.
Some people might see this very public retaliation as entitlement.
But as someone who is also estranged from their parents, his comments look like the result of having been misheard, scapegoated and unfairly sidelined for years.
Sometimes you just reach a point where enough is enough. And for me, like Brooklyn Peltz Beckham, it was a wedding that brought everything to a head.
In 2018, my boyfriend proposed to me in the shadow of a European castle. Just a few weeks later, my parents declined an invitation to our wedding.
It wasn’t that they were unavailable – they simply didn’t like the guest list.
They were offended that we intended to invite a former friend of theirs, who they’d had a falling out with.
That wasn’t the only message I received after their shock refusal.
In one particularly brutal text, Mum wrote: ‘If you loved me you would never dream of inviting someone who used to be my friend, not yours… It’s like it’s your day, so who cares what anyone thinks.’
I was devastated, and had never felt so disconnected from home before.
I’d lived away from my parents house since I was 20, but this separation was different, it was emotional, and the 15,000km and 30-hour journey between us exacerbated tension.
Plus, because of the distance, I wasn’t able to just pop around to my parents’ place to chat it out over a coffee as I’d done in my 20s.
Moving to the UK was supposed to be a bit of an adventure. I was simply doing the London thing, as so many Aussies do.
My parents put on a brave front and were supportive, particularly as they had similar travel experiences themselves (my Australian Mum was working in London in the late ’70s when she met my English Dad).
In the early years of my living abroad, Mum and I fought a lot.
She’d tell me that she was upset by my lack of availability, and that felt like she didn’t have my support.
From time to time, she’d stop talking to me completely.
Once when I wasn’t able to connect her to a professional contact of mine.
The confusing thing was that in between these times, she flew to the UK to visit me and we had an incredible time together.
Back then, I would never have considered estrangement, because while we had tough times, we had also had good times that brought us back together.
The support of my new fiancé got me through those tough times.
But it came to a head when my parents received our wedding invitation.
Had Mum’s fallout with her friend been anything more than the casualty of a petty dispute, I naturally would have reconsidered the guest list.
But her explanations of what had happened with this friend were so ambiguous and nonsensical that I couldn’t make sense of the details.
Finally, after a barrage of texts and Facebook messages from Mum (and later my Dad and sister), I couldn’t take it anymore.
Estrangement felt like the only option.
In retrospect, I do wonder if the situation might have been different if there had been an opportunity to talk to each other face-to-face – something Brooklyn also says he has been denied.
Our initial estrangement lasted three years, until my first child was born. Loved up with my gorgeous son, motherhood felt like an appropriate new chapter to start healing.
For a time, we played happy families and I started to consider the possibility that our ruptures over the years had always been due to misunderstandings.
But this reconnection was short-lived: Our next (and current estrangement) came a few years later, just before the birth of my daughter.
The fallout was the result of an argument with my Mum, one that she’d pushed despite knowing that my doctors had told me to avoid stress during pregnancy.
Do you think the Beckham family estrangement can be reconciled?
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Yes, with effort and understanding.
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No, the damage is done.
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It depends on both parties.
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I am not sure.
Today, I’ve been completely estranged from my parents and younger sister for several years, my Dad and sister largely by default.
It’s not always a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’, but years of therapy and self-discovery have helped to some extent, and being abroad has given me the space to untangle things.
Now, as a parent myself, I see the impact of that estrangement not only on me, but on how we raise our own children.
Occasionally, my eldest child asks about my parents.
He’s far too young to understand the intricacies of estrangement, so we use simple phrases like: ‘Mummy and Daddy aren’t able to see their parents right now, but hopefully we can soon.’
My priority now is ensuring my children are protected from the drama I’ve left behind on another continent.
I’d love to believe forgiveness is possible, but so much damage has reshaped my perception of my childhood, and of parenting itself, that it won’t be easy.
As the Beckhams have proved so publicly, estrangement is messy – no matter who you are.
A version of this story was published on November 8, 2025
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